Bartshe Miller - October 2, 2004
by Isaac Cunningham
On October 2, Bartshe Miller led Semester in the West on a tour of the Mono Basin National Scenic Area. The Scenic Area is the official designation of the land surrounding Mono Lake which was formerly underwater before extensive irrigation projects began sending water to Los Angeles.
Similar to a National Park, visitors to the Scenic Area must pay a fee, but the National Forest Service manages the trails and facilities under the Department of Agriculture instead of the National Park Service.
Bartshe Miller is the Education Director for the Mono Lake Committee. This non-profit citizens' group is dedicated to protecting and restoring the Mono Basin ecosystem, educating the public about Mono Lake and the impacts on the environment of excessive water use, and promoting cooperative solutions that protect Mono Lake and meet real water needs without transferring environmental problems to other areas." (Mission, www.monolake.org) The Mono Lake Basin is the scene of widespread controversy and litigation which has shaped water consumption practices for the state of California.
Mono Lake is the largest natural lake in California and is lies at the westernmost edge of the Great Basin. Like the Great Salt Lake on the east side the Great Basin, Mono Lake is an attraction to thousands of birds despite its high alkalinity. Dozen of fresh water streams from the neighboring Sierra Nevadas feed the lake.
In 1941, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began exercising its water rights in the Mono Lake Basin by diverting water from the feeding creeks south to
Grant Lake Reservoir and eventually 200 miles south to Los Angeles. The water diversions from these streams created sudden damage to the Mono Lake Basin ecosystem. Eventually Mono Lake lost half of its volume receding some 45 feet by 1982. IN 1978, the Mono Lake Committee began challenging the Los Angeles DWP. Finally, in 1994, the California Waterboard issued an official decision to protect Mono Lake Basin.
During the sixteen years of litigation over Mono Lake's water, water consumption practices by the city of LA and the state of California changed remarkably. Residents of Los Angeles uses less water per capita than any other city in the state. The city of LA uses no more water today that nit did in 1975 despite a population increase of more than 1,000,000 people. The dramatic change in water use is in part due to the intensive education and outreach efforts of the Mono Lake Committee.
Organizing educational experiences for young people through field programs, canoe trips, and outdoor ecology seminars, has been one of the most important contributions by the MLC towards helping the Mono Lake ecosystem.
As Education Director of the MLC, Mr. Miller is practiced at teaching groups of students about the Mono Lake ecosystem. During his tour with the Westies, Mr. Miller explained the large tufa formations caused by the Lake's high alkalinity. Within a bottle of lake water we observed the reaction precipitating calcium carbonate. This reaction over hundreds of years formed pillars of tufa which are now the main tourist attraction to the area. Bartche Miller has worked for the MLC since 1994. He writes for the quarterly educational newsletter published by the MLC.